Employee Training and Development
This domain tests how to diagnose learning needs, design and deliver training, and prove that training changed performance. Items often ask you to choose the correct evaluation level or compute return on investment.
Core rules
- Needs assessment: organizational analysis (where training supports strategy), task analysis (what the job requires), and person analysis (who needs it). Skipping this is the most common reason training is popular but ineffective.
- Design frameworks: ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation); andragogy (Knowles) for adults, emphasizing relevance, problem-centered content, and self-direction; social learning (Bandura), emphasizing modeling and reinforcement; Kolb's experiential cycle of experience, reflection, conceptualization, and experimentation.
- Transfer of training depends on supervisor support, practice opportunity, and a climate that rewards the new behavior, not on the classroom alone.
- Kirkpatrick's four levels: 1 reaction, 2 learning (knowledge or skill gain), 3 behavior (on-the-job application), 4 results (business impact). Phillips adds level 5, return on investment.
- ROI = (monetary benefits − program costs) ÷ program costs × 100. Costs include design, delivery, materials, participant time, and lost productivity.
- Development: the 70-20-10 model (experience, relationships, formal learning), mentoring, coaching, stretch assignments, individual development plans, and succession planning with a readiness pipeline.
Worked example
A call center trains 40 agents on a new resolution protocol. Total cost is $120,000: design $30,000, delivery $40,000, participant time $50,000. First-year benefit is $180,000 from 15% fewer escalations. ROI = (180,000 − 120,000) ÷ 120,000 × 100 = 50%. Before publishing that number, the analyst confirms level 3 evidence: call recordings show agents actually used the protocol, ruling out a results claim built on an unrelated seasonal drop in escalations.
Traps that cost marks
- Presenting a level 1 reaction survey as proof of effectiveness.
- Confusing level 2 (learning) with level 3 (behavior).
- Calculating ROI on benefits alone, omitting participant time and lost productivity.
- Blaming trainees when the transfer climate offers no chance to apply the skill.